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Blues coach says Halak could be back by playoffs

jaroslavhalakgetty

The St. Louis Blues clinched a 2013 playoff berth on Tuesday. If only deciding which goalie to start could be so black-and-white.

The team’s No.1 goalie spot was already up to debate with Jake Allen and Brian Elliott enjoying their own intermittent spans of strong play, but head coach Ken Hitchcock threw an extra wild card in the mix: Jaroslav Halak might just be good to go.

Hitchcock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Jeremy Rutherford “don’t read anything into it from there,” after dropping that bomb. Maybe Rutherford won’t, but plenty of fans and pundits might embrace this invitation to debate the trio’s relative merits.

If you want help doing so, check out their season stats:

Elliott: 22 GP, 12-8-1, .903 save percentage and 2.41 GAA
Halak: 16 GP, 6-5-1, .899 save percentage and 2.14 GAA
Allen: 15 GP, 9-4-0, .905 save percentage and 2.46 GAA

Those 2013 numbers don’t exactly roll out an obvious answer, unless you place a ton of stock in win-loss record. Then again, one might counter that Halak, 27, holds the advantage based on his glorious playoff run with Montreal in 2010.

Hitchcock might provide good advice, then, because gauging the best goalie option isn’t that much easier than deciphering an unfamiliar language.